Once you learn how ignorant you are of true islamic knowledge you will see the reason why there is more than one school of thought in islam. But now you think you see what islam is and are confident enough in your self and knowledge to wonder in amazment why it is so.

Untill you get of your back side and see what it is you are critisising in full detail you will remain in the dark while those who "know" will always remain above you in allah's estimation as he has said himself in the Quran "are those who know equal with those who dont" so make an effort to know then crtitisise all you like but at that time we can say you are talking from a position of knowledge and not ignorance.

Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.

You are right there is no concept of sect in Islam but there is always a room for the difference of opinion or freedom of expression.

However, this is to be based on Quran and Sunnah and should not be molded into some kind of sect.

Why there has to be various interpretations?In my opinion there can be 3 reasons for this:

(1) Most would interpret differently because they think differently. Like no 2 fingers are alike in our hand.

(2) Some would have different interpretation because they were unable to access all the available material on the subject.

(3) Most will interpret in a different manner because they think the message in front of them should have been according to their thoughts and ideology. To them their whims, logics, old customs/ traditions are more important. They follow their own conjectures and hypothesis no matter whatever you present to them. As said in 2:18. “Deaf, dumb (and) blind, so they will not turn back”. (Here I don’t mean the difference of opinion but an interpretation which is against the basic principles of Islam. Like the interpretation some have offered incase of 2:62 and 5:69) in complete contradiction of Hadith and 3:19).

Why there is difference of opinion amongst the scholars of Fiqa? This in my opinion is due to 2 reasons.

(1) The complete collection of hadith/traditions was not available in a binded form, from one place and the scholars had to travel from one place to another to reach for the material/traditions.

(2) The society, the social customs, governmental laws, and foreign influences etc demanded different sort of solutions for the similar old problems.

Should the Old Fiqa be valid for now? In my opinion “ABSOLUTELY NOT’. I may agree to a particular set of rules or interpretations of a particular scholar but I should not be identified by his jurisprudence, like we call ourselves as SUNNI, SHIA, BARALAVI, SALFI, WAHABBI, DEOBANDDI, AHL-E-HADITH, SHAAFI, MALAKI, HANAFI, HANBLI, and what and what not you can keep counting. I hold an extreme view on this and some get infuriated on this. In my opinion either we can either call ourselves as Muslims or Shia/Sunni/Hanafi…… etc (belonging to a particular sect). I was born in Baralavi/Sunni family and about 6 years ago I denounced my sect and now only identify myself as a MUSLIM. My argument is based on the following verses and Hadith:

“And be not like those (Jews and Christians) who got divided (into sects) and disagreed after clear arguments had come to them, and these it is that shall have a grievous chastisement”. (3:105).

“Surely they who adopted different ways in their religion and divided (themselves) into sects, you have nothing to do with them; their case is only with Allah, then He will tell them of (their crimes and) what they did”. (6:159).

“So then keep your face steadfast towards the religion in the right direction -- on the nature made by Allah on which He created mankind; never make alterations in the Allah's creation; that is the right religion, but most people do not know O Keep yourself committed towards Him, and remain cautious of (your duty to) Him and be regular in your prayer and be not of the polytheists O Of those who divided their religion and became sects every sect is rejoicing on (the beliefs) what they have with them”. (Ch-30: V-30-32).

“But how can you disbelieve while it is you to whom the communications of Allah are recited, and among you is His Apostle? And whoever holds fast to Allah, he indeed is guided to the right path”. (3:101).

“And hold fast by the rope (revelations) of Allah all together and be not disunited, and remember the favor of Allah on you when you were enemies, then He united your hearts so by His favor you became brethren; and you were on the brink of a pit of fire, then He saved you from it, thus does Allah make clear to you His communications that you may follow the right way”. (3:103)

Prophet said, “You Muslims will be divided among 72 sects….” (Abu-Dawood). At another place he said, “You people will get divided into 73 sects and all will go to hell except for one”. Companions asked, ‘which one will go to heaven?’ Prophet answered, “One who will follow me and my companions”. (Thramdhi). So what was Prophet following? Obviously THE QURAN, and what were his companions following? Certainly THE HADITH (sunnah of Prophet).

Why there are so many varying interpretations and sects among Muslims?(1) Because Muslims have stopped following the Quran and Hadith and have stopped learning Arabic. They now only rely on the translations which mostly don’t convey the actual meanings.

(2) Because we have gone to the extremes in our religion against the order which was also given to the previous nations, in 5:77, “Say: O followers of the Book! do not unduly go to the extreme in your religion, and do not follow the vain desires of people who went astray before and also led many others to go astray and went away from the right path”.

Some Muslims claimed divinity for Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) by excluding him from human race, some claimed it for the 4th Caliph Hazrat Ali(RA), some started degrading and refuting the Prophet by rejecting the Hadith and some deprived him of the respect and honour which he deserve.

Why didn’t God created all of us on one Grid?God created angels who don’t have the mandate to disobey (however they do ask questions as they did once Allah announced that He is placing a viceroy on earth). Allah created Jinns who were given option either to obey or disobey. Among them was the Lucifer (whom we all today know by the name of Satan or devil), he was the most pious among Jinns but became self conceit and proud. So Allah put him to test by ordering to prostrate in front of Adam, and he failed the test.

So he asked Allah in sort of a challenge, “He (Lucifer) said: See for thyself: Is this the one whom Thou have honored over me? If Thou grant me respite till the day of resurrection, I will most certainly obliterate (and cast astray) its complete civilization except for a very few o” (17:62), also “He (Lucifer) said: As Thou hast caused me to go astray (by putting me to test), I will certainly lie in wait for them in Thy straight path o Then I will certainly come to them from front and from behind and from their right-hand side and from their left-hand side; and Thou shalt not find most of them thankful o” (7:16-17).

So Allah gave him the respite till the doomsday but said in 7:18 “He (Allah) said: Get out of here (heavens), degraded, banished; whosoever of them will follow you, I will certainly fill hell with you all”.

But Allah also told that, “….Go forth from this (state) all; so surely there will come to you a guidance from Me, then whoever follows My guidance, no fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve o And (as to) those who disbelieve in and reject My communications, they are the inmates of the fire, in it they shall abide” (2:38-39).

So initially there was one religion and that was to worship one God. Later Satan lured humans off the right path and they started worshiping the seen and distant things like moon, sun, star, idols, saints, Prophets etc. Every time humans would go astray, Allah selected His messenger to guide them to the right path and gave them divine revelations. Each time this happened, and time and again Satan would cast them away by motivating them to make alterations in the Holy Scriptures as done by Jews and Christians.

This continued on till ages, until Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) came in this world. But this time Allah Almighty announced that Muhammad is the last messenger and Quran is the last revelation and from now on no messenger will be sent forth.

However what unusual happened this time was that Allah pronounced that no one will have the power or authority to make any alterations in the last revelation “Quran” till the end of this world. So anyone who is interested to find the truth, he can consult it from the Last Testament (Quran). But the struggle between the good and evil will last till the last day.

However the matter would be decided on the day of Judgement and Allah will say, “And on the day when He shall gather them all together: O assembly of jinn! you took away a great part of mankind…… The fire is your abode, to abide in it, except as Allah is pleased; surely your Lord is Wise, Knowing”. (6:128),

and in 14:22 “And the Shaitan shall say after the matter is decided: Surely Allah promised you the promise of truth, and I gave you promises, which was all lies, and I had no authority over you, except that I called you and you obeyed me, therefore do not blame me but blame yourselves: Now neither I can come to your aid nor can you be of any aid to me; surely I disassociate myself from your shirk (associating me with Allah); surely for the unjust/evil-doers is the painful punishment”.

So the way is clear for us follow Allah’s revelations rather than our own conjectures. The Quran says, whosoever do good it is for his benefit and whosoever earns evil it is only for his own harm. Islam has got solution to all our problems but these solutions will not necessarily in accordance to our wishes.

I would summarize it this way: “THIS LIFE CONSTITUTES MEANS TO ACHIEVE AN END AND IS NOT AN END IN ITSELF.”

“Swearing by the age of time O Most certainly the complete mankind is in state of loss (including Jews who claim that no harm can come to them from God, including Christians who claim Prophet Jesus sacrificed himself for their salvation, including Muslims who are sure that Prophet Muhammad will not let them go to heaven, Hindus, Buddhist etc etc) O Except for those who have faith (in Allah, apostles, angels, revelations, Taqdeer [that God has power over all things, narrowly translated as Destiny], Day of Judgment 2:2-3) and perform good deeds and enjoin each others on truth and show/insist each other on patience O”

Dear bro Shams and Prof. Sahib, I think, the existance of 4 madhibs has nothing to do with all what you have mentioned in your posts. Bro Rami has very rightly pointed out that we need to learn about our deen more assiduously than hypothetically. The 4 madhibs came into existance based upon 4 distinctively different methodologies of logic and argumentative reasoning, on the same source of material i.e Quran and Sunnah, and some time of the Salaf/Khalaf, to come up with different solutions of the same problem. These 4 schools of thoughts, apply uniquely but logically defined methologies consistantly in all their matters under analysis. Their solutions (views) differ from each others, simply because of variations in the degree of authentication, they assign to a particular evidence more than the other available. Logically speaking, there is nothing wrong in it.

Ironically, we have lost our precisous tools of critical thinking by making the Islam as stagnant murky water of total "taqleed".

Therefore, its not wise to disassociate with these processes, since hypothetical thinking is worse than even doing "taqleed".

On the other hand, ummah as a whole, is now merely doing "taqleed" and hence got static in its development. It is hard to find any movement for the renewal of critical thinking that can revive the actual Islam for us; the Islam that can evidently be seen from Quran and Sunnah.

Yes, you can debate all your life on the issue of sects, but the fact remains that;

None can prove that it is right to divide umma in whatever name you choose;

In contrary here what Quran says;

6/159;

"As for those who divide their religion and break up into sects, thou hast no part in them in the least: their affair is with Allah. He will in the end tell them the truth of all that they did."

If you like to ponder this above verse, you will find that the message given to Rasool (Apbuh) by Allah Subhana wa taala that *you have no part in them in the least*, in other words it says; you have no relations with them. If a true Muslim who wants to follow Sunnah, then Sunnah is that; Muslims have no part in them in the least who divide themselves in different sects, whatsoever.

O my dear Prof Sahib, why should I be cursing you? I know you are quite sincere in your approach and I have no differences as what you ask for removing the sects. Move on from here. Let us know where are you heading? May Allah give you wisdom to unite the Muslims. Amin.

BTW, my explanation of 4 Madhahibs was in no way creation of any sects or preference of any over any other, but to provide the actual basis of their existance in Islam, contrary to what usually people think about them.

Ahmad i agree with your defanition of what the madhhabs are but not on why this ummah is in the state it is in.

Taqleed is necassery for all people including scholars, but i would assume now you only see taqlid as simply following a scholars opinion on a matter, which is not exactly true if you were to learn how actual scholars use taqleed you will get a diferent picture of what it is.

a simple example, a scholar uses the legal principles of his madhhab to rule on a matter that has come he exersises his judgment with the various evidences but makes taqleed of the opinons of various scholars on particular points such as the grading of a hadith. When he uses a hadith for evidence he makes taqleed of say Imam Bukhari's opinion that this particular hadith with its chain of naration is sahih, insha allah you are starting to get the picture, instead of researching every little point himself which would be an enourmous task to do for every ruling he makes taqleed of the opinions of the scholars in diferent sientific fields such as tafseer, language or hadith grading.

I agree to some extent that taqleed is a problem but not from the people you asociate it with. The people who taqleed is a problem for are those who reject taqleed all together even though they practice it every day with out realisation. They say we should not follow madhhabs or scholars but only Quran and sunnah meaning that they only follow what they understand from a 5 min analysis of evidence and have no regard for things like context of ahadith whether it is the context of the wider event in the ahadtih or time of revelation in the 23 year period as well as asbab an nuzul (reason for revelation). Think about this if you will, these people day in and day out literaly adopt what they read and understand from the Quran and sunnah they do not analysie on any deep level and have no understanding of legal, logical, linguistic or ethical principles which must be considered when analysing evidence.

any person familiar with law will understand when following and aplying any form of principles this process will promote analytical skills something which can not be placed with the stagnation you speak of. When you study the methods of the madhhabs you will learn the principles of the madhhabs not the rullings and as a imam that i know once said if you were to go and learn with imam abu hanifah all you would be talking about is principles.

In the madhhab you make taqleed of the principles and methods they used, taqleed of the fiqh comes after you understand the principles themself.

The stagnation you are talking about is not becouse of taqleedas traditionaly used it is becouse muslims do not practice the religion, what does allah himself say in the Quran act on my religion and i my self will teach you knowledge you did not have beffore, which also means he will open up ways for you to apply this relgion to situations that have not arisen beffore also known in islam as mutaghayirat ( new matters, or mattters whose nature changes).

taqleed when taken by itself to be the sole act that a muslim should do to know his religion will always give an extreme picture of this ummah it is only one thing we should do among other things. How can something practiced from the begining of islam (as the sahabah did taqleed of rasul allah) be the cause of the ummahs downfall. this Ummah produced some of the worlds most brilliant minds all of whom practiced taqleed of the madhhabs. We need to look at and understand it in its correct light and usage.

regarding the problems of this ummah i would recomend you look at The rise and fall of the Ummah [an examination of the social, economic, cultural and political decline of the Muslim ummah], i dont think the matter is as simple as laying the blame at the feet of taqleed something which the majority of people can not do without since most do not wish to be scholars or are even capable of it, taqleed is practical for people.

you may also find the advice of this brother helpfull on the matter of the madhhabs, if i could highlight tow particular works which you may be interested in.

By refuting the sects I don't mean to invalidate or criticize the 4 Mazhabs. Indeed these scholars and all others whom we call as Sunnah wal Jamat did a splended job to resolve the THEN existing problems in their socities. Why they differ? of course due to logic and non-availablity of the complete litratue and collection of Hadith.

But there is a unique saying of all these scholars, that if anyone find anything of my explaination and interperation contradicting with Quran and Sunnah he should hit my explaination with the wall or words to this effect.

They never proclaimed that they have devised a set of principles and interperation which must be followed. Infact all of died in either captivity or exile fighting the pressures to either accept the post of a religious ministery or proclaim that this is the interpertation to be followed.

They all refused but said that these are our explainations and all have the right to contradict these on logic and evidence from Quran and Sunnah. So we may consult them or even adopt some of these principles or even all pf these principles but this has to be on our own effort to examine this in the light of Quran and Sunnah.

Finally we should not go for blind TAQLEED or following or to proclaim sect on the basis of these Madhabs or teachings. We still must proclaim ourself as Muslims and not as Hanifi, sunni, shia, shafi etc, with an open mind to critically evaluate the teachings.

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